Meet Igal Fedida: Orthodox Jew Featured At Art Basel

Miami-based artist Igal Fedida exhibited his transcendent collection, “The Art of Letters: Journey Into Being” during Miami’s Art Basel last week at the Bal Harbour Waterfront. Fedida was born in Israel and moved to America 35 years ago. He spent 20 years in Los Angeles, where he had a successful construction business, before ultimately succeeding in becoming a full-time artist.

Fedida has made art since childhood. When I asked him what constitutes the title “artist,” he answered, “It’s not just the fact that you dedicate the time only for the art…but more what you sacrifice,” which is what he did when he embarked on his full-time artistic journey.

Fedida says that keeping Shabbat is his “ID,” and that if we go the way of Rambam, observances don’t need to be questioned; they just need to be done. He also offers the approach of the Ramban, who explains that once the mitzvot are followed, you become knowledgeable of what is larger than you. Fedida draws a parallel between naaseh v’nishma (‘doing before understanding’) and his artistry, saying that he wakes up as a Jew, does what he needs to do, and then walks into the studio with his tools and materials, ready to create. In painting terms, mitzvot are the primer for the art.

Fedida is a visionary who channels lessons from kabbalistic texts into powerful, colorful paintings that cause viewers to step back. Fedida produces work through the building blocks of creation, the Hebrew alphabet, Lashon HaKodesh. With his outlook, he understands a greater obligation in influencing the world with his art. “The word influencer in Hebrew is ‘mashpia.’ The word mashpia comes from ‘shefa,’ abundance,” he explains. Someone who participates in the act of creation can “become a part of the people that give to the world, not just to receive…and that is the principle of Judaism,” co-creating with Hashem.

When I asked Fedida to speak to the Hebrew letters and how they show up in his art, he replied, “big questions.” Still, he explained the complexities: “The title is The Art of Letters: Journey Into Being. The art of letters is, if we go back to Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation), the first mishnah opens saying Avraham Avinu, that the world is created through 32 paths of wisdom—the 22 Hebrew letters and the 10 sefirot. The letters have power, energy. Each letter has the power and energy in creating something in the world.” He further explained that according to Ari HaKadosh, we live in Olam (the world), but each person is an Olam Katan, a microcosm. “Whatever we have in the cosmic realm is the mirror for the man himself, and his sum of power,” so each letter is part of the forces within each person. How it’s formed into balance and existence is through the Hebrew language. “When you speak and pronounce properly and know the power of each letter, in a way you are completely balanced,” and that person has “no disease in his body.”

Fedida reads a lot of Divrei Torah and pulls from kabbalistic texts. He cites the first line of Chumash, “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz”—“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” He points out that there are two instances of “et,” which our sages say is how we know the world was created through the letters. “From aleph to taf, the 22, He created the heavens. From aleph to taf, He created Earth,” says Fedida. He takes this text, plays with it, paints it, and says, “It’s a prophecy that I just deal with through the visual, and later on, I see the result. We don’t really always understand completely,” he explains.

Before October 7th, Fedida spent much of his time in his gallery in Tzfat. Over the last year, however, he’s created exclusively in Miami. The show in Bal Harbour was exciting for him because it was in his own backyard, among friends and family. “It was very exciting. I mean, the work that I’m exhibiting now I feel it’s really good work. I see my growth, I’m maturing. And the scenery on the terrace, in front of the ocean and the Intracoastal and sunset, was just perfect.”

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